Life surrounds me as I walk through the woods. The worn path beneath my feet divides forest from forest. Little blades of grass pop up through the cracks, interrupting the pattern of gray concrete. In the cool morning wind, leaves swirl around me like confetti. One specific leaf catches my eye. It’s yellow, oval-shaped, and only the size of my thumb. There’s a little hole where a bug must’ve had a snack.

 

The leaf’s simple beauty intrigues me; it’s so different from the other leaves that skitter along the path ahead of me. I look up into the trees around me, seeking a branch that bears similar leaves. I find the limb far up in the canopy, weaving its way between other branches. My eyes trace it until it meets up with a thicker branch and then eventually works itself into the trunk of the tree. 

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The tree stands just two paces off the path. Immediately, I recognize it as a honey locust. The trunk is just big enough that I bet if I really tried, I could wrap my arms around it and my fingers would meet on the other side. I don’t dare, however, because there are four-inch barbs extending every which way. The thorns make the tree look menacing and mean. How could something so uselessly ugly produce something so elegant as this little leaf? I half expect a plump orange creature to jump out from behind the tree and cry, “I am the Lorax! I speak for the trees!” No such creature appears, but I give the tree another chance and reexamine it. 

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Right at my eye level, there is a cluster of cider-colored thorns. Taking a closer look, I see there are spider webs stretched between the thorns and the tree. A little spider, just barely big enough to be seen, is carefully bridging the thorns with the web. Normally, the sight of spiders would be revolting to me, but today, I don’t see a nasty little bug. Instead, I see a tree, extending a helping hand to a tiny life, giving it room to stretch its new home. In turn, I see the spider protecting the honey locust from little parasitic bugs that might hurt it.

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A bird’s gentle song draws my eyes upward, and I see a little sparrow, no bigger than my fist, hopping among the bristled branches. I realize it's safe because few predators would dare climb this barbed honey locust. 

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My eyes return to the base of the tree, and gently, I run my hand between the patches of thorns. The bark below is soft and speckled with gray, brown, and green mosses. My eyes travel down the tree to the ground. Roots are hidden deep within the earth, preventing the soil from eroding into the river that flows just a few feet beyond. 

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I can see how this specific honey locust is impacting several lives. The tree has stood for years, decades even. I begin to wonder how many lives this tree has touched. How many people have appreciated, for just an instant, the shade it offers? How many birds have nested in its protective branches? How many bees have taken nectar from the tree’s flowers, and in turn benefited this tree by pollinating its flowers? How many deer have eaten the subsequent bean pods that dropped from this tree, and spread the tree’s offspring throughout the forest?

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The thought intrigues me. This honey locust, just by standing here, has impacted so many lives. But perhaps it's not necessarily that this tree is a honey locust, or even that it's a tree at all. Perhaps it's more than that. Perhaps it's the very fact that this tree lives. It has lived through, and contributed to, years of this park’s growth. It has played a part, however small, in eons of nature’s determined resilience. And its story is unfinished, this tree still has years to keep impacting the world around it. Even when one day it falls and crumbles away, its rotting will give way to new life, to a new tree, but to the same story. The story of life.

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